The secret to a good scone, in my opinion, is to knead the dough lightly and shape by hand. If you don't knead the dough enough, the scone will be too crumbly; knead it too much or - heaven forbid! - roll it out, and your scone will be too heavy.
Ingredients
300g self-raising flour
50g caster sugar
75g butter
160ml milk
Method
- Heat the oven to 200oC. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl, add the sugar, cut the butter into small pieces and add to the flour and sugar mixture, rubbing it gently with your fingertips until it is the texture of breadcrumbs.
- Add the milk, mix with a spoon, and then knead gently until you have a smooth dough.
- Divide the dough into eight even pieces, form each piece into a ball, and flatten slightly to form a fat, rough disk. Any cracks and folds will add texture to the finished scone.
- Place the rounds on a lightly floured baking sheet and bake for 14 minutes.
I've been making scones for years but I have to confess that it took me a while (okay, years!) to realise that, while not rolling and cutting them was fine, I'd gone too far in the other direction and that by barely kneading the dough at all my scones were crumblier (and heavier) than they should have been. Nonetheless, I have lots of happy memories of making scones with my kids for friends and family, so here are a couple of photos from the archive.
